› added 1 year ago

93

TIL a Billy Joel biopic called "Piano Man" has been greenlit, but no rights for Joel's music, name/likeness, or life story were granted

m1djv TIL German mental calculator Gert Mittring broke the world record for taking roots when he successfully calculated the 89247th root of a million-digit number.
yQVve Take a look out your window and you're bound to see a dinosaur or two—or at least the descendant of one. That little blue jay? Dinosaur. The obnoxious early rising crow? Dinosaur. The squirrel running up the tree? Well, that’s still a squirrel. But those feathered friends make your yard a real-life Jurassic Park. Most researchers believe birds are descendants of a group of dinosaurs that included the Tyrannosaurus rex. Fossil research has shown that birds and dinosaurs shared behaviors such as brooding and nest building. According to paleontologist and National Geographic grantee Jack Horner, it also stands to reason that dinosaurs had similar courting behaviors as today’s birds. Because various bird species tap-dance, moonwalk, and boogie to impress potential mates, it makes sense that dinosaurs did the same. Just imagine a giant T. rex with its tiny T. rex arms "twerking" its way into the heart of its intended. In this week’s Today I Learned, Horner explains how dinosaurs might have been the original smooth criminals.Read more about one species of Triceratops, Triceratops horridusAdditional footage provided by Cornell Lab of Ornithology
jp5X TIL That scientists have discovered how to temporarily induce Rain-Man like skills in normal people by stimulating parts of the brain with magnetic pulses.
JY6em TIL a recently discovered fearsome Jurassic crocodile has been named Lemmysuchus, after Motorhead frontman Lemmy.
OoZg1 TIL about Henry Rathbone, a Major in the Union Army who was with President Lincoln at the time of his assassination in Ford's theate. Despite being stabbed and slashed by John Wilkes Booth, he tried to apprehend the assassin and escorted Mary Lincoln to her husband, later passing out from blood loss